Dear North, We’re Ready to Talk Again

From: The South

Dear North,

One Hundred and Fifty years ago, you lashed out at our region and aggressively suppressed our sovereign decision to secede from your union. You took the thing we held dearest of all- racism- and told us we had to find more clever ways to do it than owning black people as slaves. It was an unjustifiable act, and one we certainly did not forgive nor forget.

For the century and a half since you used your military to take our slaves away, we have been plotting our revenge on you. We tried finding other ways to enslave black people- like sharecropping and segregation-, but many of them eventually just left for your northern cities. We even tried getting Southerners elected President so we could exact our vengeance through politics, but the ones who got through to the office, like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, were too weak willed to do what needed to be done.

Over time, we infiltrated your society to learn about what makes you tick. We took part in your “education” system and found out how to be more strategic in our attacks. One of the things we learned was that you have to hit your adversary where it hurts him the most, and we saw when we were at these “colleges” that there is nothing you yanks love more than going to college and identifying with the place that educated you. That’s when we formulated our most devious plan yet.

For the last 30 years, we have been developing a complex, long-term attack to turn your greatest source of pride into a subject of shame and embarrassment. That’s right, we have turned your colleges into a joke by dominating them year after year in college football, and there is nothing you can do about it.

In 1991, we expanded the Southeastern Conference and set out to make it a symbol of southern power. Some of the more perceptive northerners have come to realize that fans of rival SEC schools cheer on their adversaries when the play teams from outside the South. Of course we do! SEC pride is the last acceptable euphemism for our virulent racism now that everyone knows that “heritage” and the Confederate flag have no legitimate uses.

What we did from there was the really ingenious part. We started spending all of our state funds on these college football teams so you northern states who like to pay for things like healthcare and K-12 public schools could not compete with us. We hired the coaches with the best reputations and paid off the people who host bowls so all of the important games would be in our own back yards. The secret part was that we also started to pay some of the top players to come play for our teams, but every few years we accuse each other of cheating so nobody will figure out that the system is actually run by the conference. Remember when Mississippi State complained that Auburn paid Cam Newton to play for them? That was just to throw you off of our scent.

At first, we were not quite subtle enough.

You probably think that we sound like a Bond villain, telling you our evil plan and giving you a chance to stop it. But it is already too late. We have created a vicious cycle that will keep embarrassing your colleges every year. We built a few great teams, so now everyone thinks the players in the south are inherently better. Then they rank us at the top of the polls every year based on our “talent,” and we only play non-conference games against local also-rans like McNeese State and Alabama A&M. When we finally beat up on each other in conference games, people just assume that the conference is impossibly tough, even though none of the teams are all that good. Seriously, what has Georgia ever won? And they are ranked in the top 10 every year. That way, when our other teams beat Georgia, it looks like they’ve accomplished something. Of course, we do have some nice bowl wins against northern teams, but what do you expect to happen when a team built to win the Big 10 in cold weather travels to play Florida in Florida under perfect conditions? We have controlled all the variables, and the system will never get better for you.

By now, you can probably see how hopeless the situation has become for your beloved colleges and their football teams. Nothing you can do will change the system, and once we have college football playoffs, there will be even more SEC teams in the final four to embarrass your cold weather teams in our stadiums.

There is still hope for you because we are willing to offer a treaty. Our offer is simple. We will secede from the BCS and let you go back to having good football teams and being proud of your colleges. In exchange, you must also let us secede from your silly Union and let us go back to having our slaves. That probably sounds extreme based on what you have believed all your life, but do you really want us around anymore? You lionize Abraham Lincoln for keeping the USA in one piece, but what are we offering you other than morbid obesity and illiteracy? Now is your chance to rectify that historical mistake.

If you would like to accept our offer, meet us in the neutral territory. We have just the place picked out- Appomattox court house. We suggest you act quickly, because the way this college football season is shaping up, it may end with your beloved Notre Dame being slaughtered mercilessly by Alabama. And we all know that there is nothing white northerners like more than Notre Dame. This is your last chance. Let us secede from your country, and we will secede from your football.

Sincerely,

The South

Economic Recovery Hits Young Adults Hardest

By Penelope Coleman

NEW YORK- Numbers released over the last month by the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that the American economy has started a slow rebound back to healthy growth after several years of recession or stagnation. Recent college graduates, a demographic hit especially hard by the economic slowdown, have started to enter the workplace at a record pace. As they do so, they are learning that their long-awaited jobs are not as desirable as they once hoped.

“It totally sucks, man,” said Mike Huckleberry, a 2011 Rutgers graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications. “I took this job selling advertising for the Newark Star-Ledger and I never realized that it would become, like, my whole freaking life.” Mr. Huckleberry included in his list of complaints being tired all the time from getting up at 7:45 AM, having to plan his meals up to a day in advance to make sure he has enough food to pack a lunch, and not being able to catch up on ESPN’s slate of daytime talk shows such as First Take, Around the Horn, and College Football Live.

Mr. Huckleberry's halcyon days.

The workplace itself has been a veritable minefield for these young professionals. Experienced workers nationwide have taken note of the fact that these new employees need breaks at least once every hour and seem to think that the dryer is an appropriate substitute for an ironing board even though their clothes remain exceedingly wrinkly. Perhaps most annoying are the constant, frantic attempts to minimize Facebook and Twitter windows when coworkers enter their cubicles, despite the fact that no one cares what they are doing with their time. These experienced workers have expressed some frustration, but feel confident that the newer workers will eventually learn the time-tested methods for wasting hours at work, such as carrying on lengthy conversations about what happened over the weekend in colleagues' offices or scheduling unnecessary meetings and expensing coffee and donuts to the company account.

Even the work-related activities have proven to be far less engaging that previously anticipated. According to Mr. Huckleberry, “I interned at a radio station in college and it always seemed like I was the only one who didn’t have anything going on. I figured it was because I was just an intern and nobody trusted me to do anything important. Nope. Now that I am a salaried, full-time employee, I still somehow have about 2 hours of work to do in an 8-hour work day.” To cover for his lack of productivity, Mr. Huckleberry often circles the office floor to gather details on his coworkers’ projects so he has issues to talk about when his superiors ask him how thing are going.

One of the unforeseen consequences of young adults getting jobs is that many of them have moved out of their parents’ houses into vastly inferior rental apartments that they can afford. These apartments share little in common with college dorms that have on-site laundry facilities, communal bathrooms that are professionally cleaned every day, and dining halls that purchase, prepare, and clean up after meals for a small fee. Instead, these young adults are finding that the indignity of moving back home after college was a blessing in disguise as they navigate the choppy waters of taking care of themselves. On balance, most are discovering that the shame of sneaking into one’s childhood bedroom at 3 AM is worth the free food, lodging, and cleaning that comes with it.

Many new professionals are finding that the problems associated with professional life do not start and stop at the office door. For instance, new hires often feel pressured to attend office happy hours and other social events put on by coworkers. Jill Crockett, who recently took her first job selling car insurance for Liberty Mutual after 18 months of unemployment, explains that these happy hours are often anything but. “First of all, everyone wants to go to these stuffy downtown bars that are pitch black right after work. They always forget that I am broke, then they start ordering appetizers for the table that I can’t afford. Then everyone orders white wine or fancy cocktails, so I can’t really get away with having a cheap beer and I end up drinking a martini to fit in. I don’t even like olives, so ordering a martini is basically like ordering a glass full of cold gin. It tastes so gross that I have to drink it extremely slowly, which mean I can’t even get a buzz while I have to listen to these fat middle-aged people lie about how good their kids are at tennis or jazz trombone. I spend the whole time checking my phone to see if enough time has passed for me to get out of there so I can go home and watch half of Homeland before I fall asleep on the couch and start the sequence over again the next morning.”

The Presidential candidates have yet to weigh in on this burgeoning opposition to job growth. So far, both candidates have supported policies that aim to grow the economy and put more Americans to work. Recently, though, some pundits have speculated that Mitt Romney may target Barack Obama’s youthful base with promises of job-killing measures that would help take them out of the workforce for the foreseeable future. While the move is seen as a political gamble, promises of layoffs may be the type of tradition-bucking move that could put the challenger in the driver’s seat.